Modern consumer and industrial packaging often includes reinforcing tapes or tear tapes as part of their construction. Various tape dispensers have been designed to dispense such tapes into corrugator and packaging equipment. Known tape dispensers include a first spindle that supports an unwinding roll of tape and a second spindle that supports a stationary, or staged, roll of tape. To provide a continuous feed of tape, splicing techniques have been developed for splicing together the trailing end of the unwinding roll of tape to the leading end of the staged roll of tape.